Never a Quiet Vacation
by ladyoftheLights
Summary: A short and fluffy spin-off fic of our favourite OTP :) Percy and Annabeth are off on a quiet holiday together, but will everything go as smoothly as they hoped? Of course not; life is never smooth for a demi-god!


This wasn't a holiday. This was a suicide mission.

Sure, send the son of Poseidon on an airplane – there was no way that _that_ was going to go wrong.

Percy Jackson grips the armrest with white knuckles and squeezes his sea green eyes tightly shut. His jaw is clenched and he tries to think about the sea instead of the fact that he is in the sky – a place where no son of Poseidon should be.

"Percy, you look like you're going to throw up." Annabeth Chase, Percy's ever supportive girlfriend, comments helpfully.

"Please shut up," Percy begs through gritted teeth.

"Sorry," she replies absentmindedly, craning her neck so she can watch the jet engine beneath the wing of the plane. "It's so amazing how the mechanics of the engine work – and the fact that it's pretty much singularly responsible for keeping the plane in the air! To think, if one thing went wrong –"

"Annabeth," Percy pleads. "Stop."

Annabeth turns to her boyfriend who looks white as a sheet and slightly green. She puts her hand softly on top of his. "Hey, don't worry." She says. Percy tries to prise open one eye to look into her stormy grey ones.

The plane shudders with slight turbulence and Percy groans as the sky out of the plastic window turns as grey as Annabeth's eyes; but no where near as pretty and inviting.

Percy begins to pray desperately. Oh hey, Uncle Zeus, he appeals, I know you're not too stoked that I'm up in your territory, but I'm trying to give Annabeth a real nice holiday, so if we could make it to our destination alive, that would be swell. A massive plane crash might put a slight dampener on the situation. Thanks.

As if in reply to his hurried and urgent distress prayer, the sky rumbles with thunder. Percy gulps; Zeus sounds begrudging, but he hopes that Poseidon and Athena are telling Zeus to give their children a good holiday together.

"Don't worry," Annabeth says as if reading his thoughts. "My mom will make sure Zeus doesn't strike down the plane and kill us all."

"Yeah," Percy croaks. "Great."

Annabeth rearranges herself in the prickly acrylic fibre seats so she can rest her head on Percy's tense shoulders. "Relax, Seaweed Brain," she says with slight teasing in her voice.

"Let's put you in a room full of spiders and see how relaxed you are." Percy grumbles.

Annabeth cringes slightly and shudders. "Okay," she mutters. "Point taken."

Percy presses his head backwards into the headrest and concentrates on breathing in and out and in and out again. The smell of Annabeth's cherry blossom shampoo calms him slightly but it's not enough to remove the pure fear in his stomach.

This is not natural, Percy thinks. He needs the sea and the current and the life under the water and the soothing lull of the ocean. Being in the sky with the clouds and the thunder is completely and utterly wrong.

"I still don't see why we couldn't have taken a cruise or even a rowing boat," Percy growls, clutching the armrest even tighter.

"_Because_," Annabeth starts for what feels like the millionth time, and tries to keep the exasperation out of her voice given that Percy looks like he's minutes away from projectile vomiting all over the seat in front of him. "I would like to get to our destination today."

"I could do that!" Percy says indignantly, actually looking at Annabeth – but then catching sight of out of the window and looking forward to staring intently at the seat in front. "I'm the son of a sea god!"

"And I'm the daughter of wisdom, but you don't see me throwing it around," Annabeth retorts coolly. "And anyway," she continues. "You're only antsy because you've got separation anxiety from the sea."

"_Obviously_," Percy huffs sarcastically.

"Zeus wouldn't dare strike you down," Annabeth notes thoughtfully. Percy twists his neck to give her a look of incredulity. She meets this full on. "Because then he'd have Thalia to answer to."

Of course – Thalia Grace wouldn't appreciate her father's act of striking down another half blood, especially not one who had saved her brother's life multiple times.

"Well, true," Percy starts begrudgingly.

"Let's face it, the Gods have become too involved with their children to start striking each other's offspring down now – can you imagine the tensions on Olympus if that happened? So calm down. You're safe." Annabeth actually smiles at him. For once she's not teasing him.

The sky rolls and crashes with thunder again as if to try and prove Annabeth's statement wrong. _Don't get too comfortable up here, Son of Poseidon_, the sky seems to say to Percy. He gulps again. As if he'd dare feel anything close to content in the sky. Metallic thunder doesn't appeal to him as much as salt air does.

"And," Annabeth leans forward with a flirty look in her eye. "You're safe with me." Leaning over the armrest, she kisses Percy fully and unashamedly on the mouth. He tries not to blush.

"Anything from the food cart, dears?" The flight attendant makes Percy jump apart and Annabeth gives a noise of amusement at his childlike behaviour.

"I'm good thank you," Annabeth politely declines with a smile.  
"No thanks," Percy says and clears his throat. Percy blinks as he thinks he sees the hair beneath the woman's head scarf _wriggle_. Shaking his head, he puts it down to stress and smiles at her as she moves down the aisle.

Okay, Percy thinks to himself, it's been a long and stressful day …

Turning round, Percy catches sight of the flight attendant rearranging her headscarf.

"Oh man," he groans. "Annabeth."

"Mm?" She's gone back to studying the mechanics of the plane out of the tiny window.

"Don't look now but I think there's a Gorgon on this flight."

Annabeth doesn't even bother turning to face him. She sighs. "I really, _really_ hope that's a joke, Percy."

"I'm staring right at the snakes on her head, Wise Girl." He replies and slowly pulls out Riptide from his jeans pocket.

Annabeth looks at him wearily. "Do you think we'll _ever_ manage to get a quiet holiday alone without any monsters?"

Percy sighs tiredly. "Nope."

Annabeth unclips her seatbelt and slowly eases out her bronze dagger from her boot.

"Together?"

"Together."


End file.
